BoomerGirl Diary

Penning a moving paean to the spiritual forces at work in the universe isn’t much of a leap for Pam Grout. Anyone who has met the author will tell you she radiates enough of her own enthusiastic force to battle any of the world’s cynicism.

When I caught up with the quick-to-laugh author at her North Lawrence residence, she exuded a natural passion for the work she so clearly loves, carried out in a city she feels lucky to call home.

Describing the river city as both a “culturally rich” place to live and an effortless place to raise Tasman, her 12-year-old daughter, Grout says the freedom Lawrence offers also makes it the perfect place to nurture her writing career.

“There is a writing community you can be in touch with here, and I really love that idea,” she says. “I’m in a group of writers and we get together about once a month or so. It’s really fun to have a group of female writers to talk to who can identify what you’re going through.”

On the day I visited, however, it was particularly hard to imagine that the upbeat Grout would allow the trials and tribulations of the freelance writing life to bother her. Working on her final round of edits for another forthcoming book about Colorado, she seemed unruffled by the many projects competing for her attention. And though her travel writing and articles have appeared widely in magazines and newspapers, Grout also is in demand as an inspirational speaker.

Despite the fact that Grout is far too humble to term what she has achieved in her professional life as “success,” she is willing to discuss the power of strong intentions in everyday life. With her cat, Trivia, curled languidly on her lap, Grout’s eyes shone as she explained.

“We’re all focused on our physical being so much. The realm of intention — which is the bigger nonmaterial realm — is where a lot of things actually happen. But we are not really conscious of them ... not really focusing on them. So by ‘setting the intention,’ we are kind of sending out a laser beam to this bigger realm that our material selves don’t have.

“And in the book, when I talk about the ‘spiritual,’ I’m not talking so much about (God), though the title is ‘God Doesn’t Have Bad Hair Days,’ but it is more about the unseen and the spiritual as opposed to the material ... the part that we see with our eyes. And of course it is very difficult to define, but it certainly is much more powerful than we can see.”

Grout has even noticed the power of “setting the intention” in her writing life.

“When you’re trying to come up with a good opening for an article, sometimes you just have to go off to bed at night and trust that it will be there by the next morning — and it always is!” she says. “I’ve learned that the fear of not knowing what to write will block it from coming.

“The more we can give up fear in our lives, the more smoothly things go. My philosophy is that everything is either love-focused or fear-focused. And fear is very blocking, whereas love is all about expansion. When you focus your energy on love, anything is possible.”